By Luis Britto García on December 11, 2021
photo: Bill Hackwell
Two commonplaces overshadow our vision of the world’s former first power. One that their strength is due to the fact that they remained united. Two that due to the melting pot, the homogenizing tendency of democracy and the media, its population would be culturally homogeneous. Let’s go with the first one. The United States is not the result of the union of peoples, but of ruthless predation that exterminated a large part of the original population; it devoured a French North America that extended from present-day Canada to New Orleans, robbed Mexico of more than half of its territory, bought Alaska and invaded and annexed peoples such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Samoa, the Mariana Islands and Guam. Thanks to this expansion, and the unlimited supply of slave and near-slave labor of indentured immigrants, the United States was able to exploit more natural wealth than any other country on earth, survive the first attempt at secession and become an empire by imposing its hegemony through a network of almost a thousand military bases in the hemisphere and in an Old World exhausted and devastated by wars.
Let’s move on to the second commonplace: the supposed American cultural homogeneity. Violent conquests such as these subjugate populations whose cultures refuse to disappear by decree. In my 1991 book The Countercultural Empire: From Rock to Postmodernism, I pointed out that the United States is in fact a tight jigsaw puzzle of native, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-descendant, Latin American, Italian-American, Muslim, Asian and other cultures, subcultures and countercultures. Industrial production that standardizes merchandise does not necessarily homogenize cultures. Any empire that occupies, dismantles or destabilizes countries provokes flows of refugees within its borders, whose assimilation is problematic in systems marked by racism, prejudice and economic and social inequality.
Let’s look at the result. A body of work, much of it written by Americans, warns of a probable or imminent disintegration of the former first power. Empires larger than or equal in size to the United States have crumbled over the centuries. Arnold Toynbee, in his memorable Study of Story, points out that every empire creates two proletariats, one external and the other internal, under whose thrust it eventually collapses.
Turning to the present. The American Jared A Brock argues that “America will soon be divided into twelve countries: it is inevitable and I explain why”. He points out documentarily that “about half of all Americans want to secede from the union in one direction or another.” That “31% think a civil war is likely within the next five years, with Democrats thinking it is more than likely.” That “32% of Californians already approve of Calexit (California leaving the Union), which would make it the fifth-largest economy in the world.” And that “hundreds of corporations with market areas larger than many countries are desperate to break free of any kind of democratic government.”
Another American, Andrew Tanner, complements these forecasts with a date. In America’s Bitter Future he predicts that “America is destined to collapse within this decade – the problem is not when, but with what degree of violence.” Tanner points out that no nation can survive when it allows hundreds of thousands to perish in a plague that less wealthy nations have controlled; when it lacks universal public health care; when nearly half of its citizens are on the verge of poverty; when 40% of its population believes the elections were fraudulent; when 30% of the electorate abstains. When more than 50% of the discretionary portion of the federal budget – that paid for by federal income taxes – goes to military spending. Tanner adds that the United States is a myth, as “the social system faces a pronounced change in generational norms, while the economic one struggles with severe inequality and the political one -already archaic- has been torn apart by chaos in the other two”. Tanner predicts a secession into eight parts, determined by the predominance of political ideologies in each.
Let’s dispense with the perhaps biased U.S. views. Let‘s consult the views of Andrei Martyanov, a former Soviet Navy officer who moved to the United States in 1995 to serve on the board of a private aerospace company. In Disintegration: Indicators of the coming American Collapse, he notes that “America is no longer a nation. It’s not even close (…). It is a falsehood, it always was, and it cannot avoid disintegration.” Martyanov’s forte is the devastating figures. According to the Survey of Mothers with Children Twelve and Under, 40.1% reported household food insecurity since the start of the pandemic. In the 1960s, manufacturing accounted for 25% of GDP; now, just 11% of it, due to which five million jobs have left the country since the turn of the century. In 2019, the United States produced 10.8 million vehicles, and China 25.7 million (Martyanov: Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse, Clarity Press Inc).
Finally, we turn to Thierry Meyssan, a thoughtful analyst whose views often prove to be true: “the American population is experiencing a crisis of civilization and is inexorably heading towards a new civil war, which should logically lead to the breakup of its country. Such instability would also put an end to the hyperpower status still held by the West” (“U.S. Presidential Election 2020 – Open your eyes!” https://www.voltairenet.org/article211580.html).
I lack the magic ball to predict the future and the arrogance to impose my wishes on others. But I would suggest that the United States stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and deal with its own very serious problems.
Source: Ultimas Noticias, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English